Sleep broke on a hug

Last week as I was skimming through my newly acquired Norton poetry anthology, I came across some poems by Thom Gunn (b. 1929). I was reminded of the first poem of his I ever read, “The Hug,” which I found a while back in an anthology called Love Speaks Its Name: Gay and Lesbian Love Poems, from the Everyman’s Library Pocket Poets series. An exquisite piece, I think. Quiet and controlled—with a complex rhyme scheme, even—but still sensual and full of warmth:

It was your birthday, we had drunk and dined
  Half of the night with our old friend
    Who’d showed us in the end
  To a bed I reached in one drunk stride.
    Already I lay snug,
And drowsy with the wine dozed on one side.

I dozed, I slept. My sleep broke on a hug,
    Suddenly, from behind,
In which the full lengths of our bodies pressed:
    Your instep to my heel,
  My shoulder-blades against your chest.
  It was not sex, but I could feel
  The whole strength of your body set,
      Or braced, to mine,
    And locking me to you
  As if we were still twenty-two
  When our grand passion had not yet
    Become familial.
  My quick sleep had deleted all
  Of intervening time and place.
    I only knew
The stay of your secure firm dry embrace.